First Floor on Fire

By Mike Russell

First Floor on Fire reveals the life of a young African-American woman and her struggle to survive adolescence in a rough inner-city. The story has a passionate anger, raw tragedy and emotional complexity that could appeal to audiences who loved Sapphire’s Push.

The story centers around Nevaya Briggs, a strong, fragile, complex teenager who must fight a predatory adult who thinks he’s saving her, an abusive mother, a collapsing school system and a violent classmate. Her ally is her gay brother Donyair, who must fight battles of his own. A seasoned teacher, Ms. Dee, tries to protect Nevaya, but this hardened girl has learned to never trust adults.

Almost everyone in Nevaya's life has let her down, and she will fight anyone to save herself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Russell
• Release date: Mar 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311515216

Mike Russell

MIKE RUSSELL spent twenty years in law enforcement and is currently the president of Mob Cop Productions, making films and other media about what he knows best. He is the author of Undercover Cop. He lives in Delray Beach, FL.

Book preview

Chapter One: Nevaya Briggs

Yeah, I just threw Chardae down the stairs, so what? I don’t give a fuck.

My man died a year ago today. Shot dead on the street. Nobody got no business getting in my face. They all better show some respect. This is my day. Why didn’t I just cut school, stay in my room with my cats, keep the world out of my face? For my anniversary, I earned a break. I earned a break forever from everybody.

I already been hurt every way possible. Other than killing me, they ain’t a thing left nobody can do to me. I hope I ain’t never had no past lives, cause I lived too many in this one. And I’ll spend the rest of this one fighting, cause I have to. If I act like a punk, I be thrown on the rocks. Nobody stand up for me but me.

Chardae and her friends spotted me minding my own business on my way to Ms. Dee’s corny English class. As soon as my feet touched the second floor, I saw them, ten feet away, and don’t even try to say they ain’t been waiting. They must of known my girls weren’t with me. Fucking God! She did not bring her mom in to help her. The whole family fight on the street, everyone do that, but in school?! Chardae didn’t waste a second. Your mom!

Your grandmom!

Your mom a teabagging bitch! Bet she was fucking your man like a champ when he got popped!

So I did what I had to. I grabbed that smut by her hair, shoved her to the door, kicked the door open, dragged her a few feet and threw her down the stairs. Tough and fast, I got her to the stairs before her stupid-ass friends and nasty bitch of a mom got to me. She dropped just as the first blow struck me. Chardae hit the next stair. A foot to my belly. The third stair. Fist to my head. Fourth stair. Police officer grabbed the next fist, half a foot from my eye. Fifth and sixth stair. The next officer pinned me to the wall.

Damn right we had an audience. Look at all those wannabes scream. I got something done, and they had to live through me. Got they phones out, filming me, screaming, wanting more. I could always see things they couldn’t, and they hated me for it. I been making my dreams, and they wanted me to burn them one by one. They tried to steal from me, but I’m the part that can’t be stolen.

Bunch of them laughing they asses off. They think the whole fight funny, like something on YouTube. Build theyselves up by trying to tear me down, but they gonna fall. And if you think I could ever fall, then y’all have done lost your minds. Anyone can see Chardae on the floor, curled up, broken, twisted, blood carving up the shape of her face. I saw my blood, too, but it winner’s blood.

Wait - oh, my fucking God, she stood up again. Lots of blood, but nothing really broken. Never yell I won! before you know for sure they down for good.

Chardae moaned, You ugly dark bitch. I tried to run forward so she could get got proper, but the officers held me back.

I done the right things all week. Ain’t nobody can say different. You know, you really know I’m never no teacher’s pet, but I can do right without kissing ass. Why can’t these corny police leave me alone? Get your fucking hands off me! I don’t need your help! I’m gonna fucking kill those bitches! They can’t beat me! They gotta be in a group to even try any shit!

Officer Alina, stone and hammer, wasn’t having it, dragged me into one of the security rooms, just her and me. "Nevaya, you little fuckhead, I been tired of telling you to stop this shit. How about it? What happened this time?"

So what??! Chardae shouldn’t of called my mom a teabagging bitch!

Officer Alina threw me her don’t-even-think-you-gonna-try-that-shit face. "I told you time and time again to ignore them when they try that. You let them set you off like that, you let them control you."

Every grown up try to say some corny shit to trick me into not throwing down. "So what??!! You ain’t my mom, so don’t say nothing to me."

"You better be glad I ain’t your mom! If you was mine - "

"And you got a nerve! When I ever see you ignore anything? You always in our business! Come around here and pretend you’re some motherfucking role model!" That always gets them mad, find any way that they wrong. Don’t matter how small it is. If it change the subject, it good.

"Call me out my name like that again." Yeah, I knew she really meant it that time, but I never kiss no ass.

I leaned against the cracked wall, looked her clear in her eye. "Aiight, you a fatherfuckin’ role model!"

Lava melted in Officer Alina’s eyes. Her left hand hit the wall, her arm cutting me off in one direction. "Navaya, you think you so hard." If I pushed this much further, she’d snap. I knew I had better say something corny.

Yeah, every morning, I eat puppies on toast!

That gave Alina an out. She didn’t have to beat my ass now. Well, you oughta know better than that. Ain’t you never heard toast is bad for you?!

She almost made me smile with that one. At least she tried. Don’t mean she wouldn’t rat me out for the price of a cup of coffee. Don’t mean I couldn’t take her in a fair fight. But she a cop with a gun, she got the advantage for now.

I know I messed up big earlier in the school year, and nobody better pretend they got any business reminding me about that. But I’m not gonna let myself fail, drop out, spend my life doing hair. I’m getting out of here, gonna go to college, make my brothers proud, and those nasty-ass, dickeating-all-night, take-it-up-they-ass smuts can’t stop me. They hated me since third grade, can’t let nothing go. If I insulted them seven years ago, you can bet cash money they remember every word I said, very gesture I made, all programmed in they brains. Yeah, I know everything they said, so fucking what? They keep track of me, I return the favor.

My face must of snitched what I was thinking. Officer Alina glared at me. You can’t go on like this. Richard Allen and Blumburg girls have hated each other for years, and for what?! Can you even remember when or how it started? And now you gonna be damn lucky if you not in jail tonight.

Huh, who she think she talking to? I been threatened with jail enough times to know when somebody talking shit to try to scare me.

Those bitches from Blumburg should not of fucked with us. They never learn. They too grown. Those dickeaters is drawin’. Nobody from that dirty project ever been shit. We live in Richard Allen. We don’t play. We didn’t start nothing but we will end it.

Nana said to me, You make me so mad you make my ass wanna chew tobacco. She know how it is. The way you feel just before you explode and rain your blood all over the city. I’m about to snap. Anybody give me any shit all all, I’m a snap. Especially today, the one day any fool should know to let me be. Officer Alina ain’t been here long, so she don’t know.

I gotta get out of here, nobody knows me. Gonna kill the next motherfucker who look at me wrong. Cut you open and burn everyone to ash. Nobody say nothing to me - get out my mind and my face, punk ass teachers and haters think they know but they don’t know shit GET THE FUCK OUT you ain’t gonna know me, never gonna touch my fire, my heaven and hell. You just go on thinking I’m some dumb bitch, and it’s your loss, cause you’ll never know. Yeah, go right ahead and call me out my name. You won’t break my skin, you won’t tear up my guts, I won’t pay no attention to you at all unless I beat you down. You go ahead and think I bathe in the blood of baby bunnies so long as it keep you off my pussy.

Officer Alina don’t understand me. She say she do, act like she do, but she one of them, not one of us, especially not one of me, so she don’t know. She kept her eyes on me, got me alone in this falling-down room til they decide whether I go to jail or not. I bet I don’t. Those bitches hate the police as much as I do, they won’t press charges. They want to get they own revenge, and the law would just get in the way.

Why you asking me where we are? You oughta know this is Killadelphia, Filthydelphia, The City That Smacks You Back. We in the North Philly Badlands. Don’t ever tell me what we should do, what would make good sense, cause good sense never happen here. Forget you ever learned those two words.

Center City act like it made of platinum, and up northwest they a bunch of rich cracker stuck up neighborhoods, but I’m stuck in the rotten soul of the city falling down all over us. Broken glass never get cleaned up. Young bols killing young bols. Bitches killing bitches. They don’t know what they do, but they know they gotta do it. Raw project law. Never shook the hand of nobody who own no stores. They always behind bulletproof glass.

Have I ever been out of town? Naw, everything I know is here. I’d love to get out, but where would I go? We ain’t allowed to live noplace else. But don’t you dare feel sorry for me. I’ll kick you ass if you try that shit.

No matter what I crawl through, no matter how wrong it be, everybody try to stop me being angry. They say, It’s not appropriate. What they actually sayin’ is my real pain take up too much of they time. Gotta keep the factory going, can’t stop for a messy human. I gotta make a way out of no way.

Miss Briggs.

Mr. Price. Why that man always gotta say some obvious shit. Waste of air, that all he be.

I told you I never wanted to see you in my office again.

"Then don’t. I’m not trying to be here." Not in this crazy, messed-up room. Some things in his office look like they belong in rich white folks’ houses. Glass cases and dark wood. Shiny new laptop. But the room still got cracks on the walls, old paint that look like mold. One wall look pregnant, like it thinking about falling on our heads.

"Miss Briggs. You will not disrespect me in my own office."

That so? Things sure change, don’t they?

Mr. Price slammed his fist on the desk. I knew I could make him snap. The more all the rich people try to glue theyselves together, the more they snap. Oh, look, now he putting on his reasonable face. The one he use when he want me to believe he care real deep about me. He think he God’s blessing to the world, gonna save us all from ourselves just so we’ll thank him.

Nevaya, I am making … an exceptional effort … not to call the police. Don’t make me do it. He gonna sit there and lie to me like that? He can’t press no charges. I know those Blumburg bitches don’t want no police in the way. And even if Price could throw me in jail, I ain’t make him do shit.

Principals and teachers must think we stupid. They quick to suspend us beginning of the year. Tell us they won’t put up with none of us losing our minds. And for awhile, they do kick out some young bols. But then the numbers pile up. If they suspend and kick out too much, then they the ones who look bad. So they find excuses to pretend we don’t do what we do. Keep the numbers looking pretty. Oh, yeah. They think I’m too dumb to figure that one out. So I just let them think that stupid shit. Cause when they think that, I win.

Nevaya, I’m talking to you.

Yes, you are.

And I think you owe me an explanation for what you did.

Those bitches –

"Don’t change the subject. Why did you do what you did?"

Because I had to! People in charge sure do like to pretend we can all hold hands and just walk away from a fight. If I did that, the fight would bum rush me. They think they so smart, but what they really telling me to do is let myself get jumped. And then they shake they heads and act sad and sorry for me. We got this program for you, we got that program for you. We promise this time it will change everything. Nothing at all like that program last year that was gonna change everything for me. Try to fool theyselves into believing they saved the world.

"You did not have to. You could have ignored them and walked away. Yup. What did I just tell you? They always say that. They didn’t hit first. You did."

If I didn’t, they would have!

You don’t know that. Like fuck I don’t. "I keep telling you you need to find a way to de-escalate. Oh, my fucking God! I’d like to see one of these soft motherfuckers de-escalate." They’d get they ass stomped in. I could sell tickets. Everybody’d like to see folks who work in a school get theyselves a big mudhole in they ass. Especially fuckheads who went to college and think they know it all.

You need to find ways of thinking outside the box. Oh, my fucking God!!! Mr. Price don’t even need to be here. He would just have somebody play a file of what I already heard a million times. Always the same shit by people who don’t know what they talking about, but they think they so smart. The faces change; the words don’t. They think they can make me change my mind by yelling the same thing at me my whole life. I stopped listening a thousand years ago.

Tell me what I can do to help you.

Kill those smuts for me. Do it slow.

You know you don’t mean that.

Don’t tell me what I don’t mean. I ain’t no child. I wish just once an adult would offer to help me and mean it. But no, I can’t trust any of them. At least those Blumburg smuts don’t front. They evil, right on the surface, no hiding. Nothing I hate more than some big, friendly smile fronting for a devil.

The noise file wouldn’t stop. I know you don’t want to hear this –

Then don’t say it!

"- but you are still technically a child. And that’s ok. I used to be just like you." Mmm hmm, anybody say that, it mean the conversation all about them. I might as well not be in the room. Just have that noise file play to an empty chair. I understand just what it’s like to be a young person. Nobody who really understand anything gotta let folks know how smart they is. If you have it, we already gonna know.

This is your lucky day. Mr. Price’s eyes stayed on me just a beat too long. Just like most grownups. I knew he thought he so slick I wouldn’t feel his nasty self oozing out to step to me.

Mr. Price, why you staring at me? I ain’t your shorty.

"Nevaya! You will not disrespect me like that! How dare you! Veins dancing, sweat pretending it wasn’t there, eyes putting on a show of being offended. He sure knew just how offended to pretend to be. Took him no time at all to figure out what I meant. Bet he already rehearsed his answer. I am a married man and would never